The Benjamin N. Duke House, also the Duke–Semans Mansion and the Benjamin N. and Sarah Duke House, is a mansion at 1009 Fifth Avenue, at the southeast corner with 82nd Street, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was built between 1899 and 1901 and was designed by the firm of Welch, Smith & Provot. The house, along with three other mansions on the same block, was built speculatively by developers William W. Hall and Thomas M. Hall. The Benjamin N. Duke House is one of a few remaining private mansions along Fifth Avenue. It is a New York City designated landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The house, located across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Fifth Avenue building, consists of seven stories and a basement. The exterior of the house is built in the Beaux-Arts style, while the interior was originally designed in the French Renaissance style. The ground floor is clad in limestone, while the facade of the upper floors is made of brick; the mansion is capped by a copper mansard roof. The facade is divided vertically into six bays on 82nd Street and three bays on Fifth Avenue. The main entrance on 82nd Street leads to a stairway that rises through the building. Originally, the dining room, music room, parlor and kitchen were on the second floor, while the other stories contained bedrooms. The house was divided into three apartments in the 1990s, and it had 12 bedrooms and 14 bathrooms by the 2010s.
American Tobacco Company director Benjamin N. Duke acquired the house in April 1901 and lived there until he moved to a new house at 2 East 89th Street in 1909. Benjamin's brother James lived with his brother and wife for several years and then leased the house from 1909 until he moved to the James B. Duke House at the corner of 78th Street and Fifth Avenue in 1912. The mansion then served as the residence of Benjamin Duke's son Angier Buchanan Duke until 1919, when Angier's sister Mary Lillian Duke and her husband A. J. Drexel Biddle Jr. moved in. After Mary's death in 1960, her daughter Mary Semans took over the house with her family. The building became a city landmark in 1974 after the Semans family refused to sell the building to developers; it was renovated in the 1980s and again in the 1990s. Semans sold the house in 2006 to businessman Tamir Sapir. Mexican telecom magnate Carlos Slim bought the house in 2010 and tried to resell it in 2015 and 2023.
Site The Benjamin N. Duke House is at 1009 Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is on the southeast corner of 82nd Street and Fifth Avenue. The rectangular land lot covers , with a frontage of on Fifth Avenue to the west and on 82nd Street to the north.
Directly to the north, the building is adjacent to a 15-story apartment building at 1010 Fifth Avenue, which was completed in 1925. A townhouse at 2 East 82nd Street abuts the building to the east. To the south are two apartment buildings: 1001 Fifth Avenue, designed by Philip Johnson and John Burgee in 1979, as well as 998 Fifth Avenue, designed by McKim, Mead & White and opened in 1910. The main entrance of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Fifth Avenue building is directly across Fifth Avenue to the west, adjoining Central Park. Historically, the house was part of Fifth Avenue's "Millionaires' Row", a grouping of mansions owned by some of the United States' wealthiest people.
Historically, the Benjamin N. Duke House was one of four adjacent mansions at 1006 through 1009 Fifth Avenue that were developed by William W. and Thomas M. Hall and completed in 1901. Welch, Smith & Provot was hired to design all four mansions, as well as the adjacent townhouse at 2 East 82nd Street. Among the notable occupants of the other houses was the National Audubon Society, which moved into 1006 Fifth Avenue in 1938. The houses at 1006 and 1007 Fifth Avenue were demolished in 1972 to make way for an apartment building, and the house at 1008 Fifth Avenue was also demolished in 1977.
Architecture The house was built between 1899 and 1901 to designs by the firm of Welch, Smith & Provot, composed of Alexander M. Welch, Bowen Bancroft Smith, and George Provot. Welch, Smith & Provot. who worked nearly exclusively for William W. and Thomas M. Hall, designed many buildings on the Upper East Side in the early 20th century. The house was built in the Beaux-Arts style with a French Renaissance interior, decorated mainly with Louis XV style furniture. P. A. Fiebiger created much of the house's metalwork.
Facade The main portion of the house rises five stories from the street and is capped by a two-story mansard roof. The 82nd Street elevation of the facade, to the north, is vertically divided into six bays of openings; the facade is further split into a five-bay-wide main section and a one-bay-wide eastern wing. There are three bays of openings on the west, facing Fifth Avenue. Both the Fifth Avenue elevation and the third-westernmost bay on the 82nd Street elevation are curved outward in a manner resembling the Baroque style.
The house is separated from either street by a recessed areaway, which is delineated by a cast iron railing along the sidewalk. The basement and first floor are clad with rusticated blocks of limestone. The facade of the upper floors is made of brick, with limestone quoins at each corner, as well as large pieces of limestone trim. The roof is clad with red tile and is topped by copper cresting; metal finials extend from the top of the roof. The mansard roof may have been influenced by the Beaux-Arts style; the house is designed with further elements of the Beaux-Arts style, including cartouches on the facade and wrought-iron window guards. The copper cresting on the roof, which was mass-produced when the house was built, had to be replaced with a custom-made replica in the 1980s. The modern-day house has six metal finials, each weighing and measuring tall. There are also two outdoor terraces, including one on the roof.
82nd Street
The main portion of the 82nd Street elevation consists of the westernmost five bays of that elevation. The third bay from the west, a curved central bay, is flanked by two-bay-wide pavilions that project slightly from the facade. The house's main entrance is in the center bay, underneath a metal-and-glass marquee at the ground story. The doors are made of wrought iron and glass and are flanked by engaged columns and narrow windows on either side. Above the first floor, the center bay consists of a three-story-high window frame made of limestone. On the second story, there are four windows in the center bay; there is a lintel and cartouche above the two center windows and a cartouche above each of the outer windows. The center bay has a rectangular window on the third floor and a segmentally-arched window with cartouche on the fourth floor. Both the third- and fourth-floor windows of the third bay have iron window guards. A balustrade runs above the fourth floor of the third bay.
On the ground story, the side pavilions (comprising the first, second, fourth, and fifth bays from west) have rectangular windows flanked by brackets. These brackets support balconies on the second floor, behind which are French windows; there are triangular pediments above each of the second-story French windows. Within the side pavilions, the windows on the third and fourth floor of each bay are connected by limestone frames, and there are iron window guards in front of the windows. Above the fourth story, brackets hold up a horizontal band course protruding from the facade. There are rectangular windows at the fifth story, as well as limestone belt courses that run across the facade. An ornate cornice, with modillions, runs across the facade just above the fifth floor, with a stone balustrade above the cornice. Dormers with segmentally-arched cartouches protrude from the mansard roof.
The wing at the eastern end of the 82nd Street facade is one bay wide and is clad with rusticated limestone blocks at its base. An oriel window, which resembles a conservatory, projects from the facade at the second story. There is a fluted corbel below the oriel window, as well as floral ornament around the window. Similarly to the other bays, the third floor contains a rectangular window, and the fourth floor includes a segmental arch with a cartouche just above it. Above the fourth floor, the facade of the eastern wing is recessed behind a balustrade.
Fifth Avenue
On Fifth Avenue, all three bays are curved outward and are placed within a limestone frame. As with the 82nd Street elevation, the basement and first floors are clad with rusticated limestone; the outer portions of the facade above the first floor are made of red brick. There are limestone balustrades in front of the second-floor windows, as well as garlands on the spandrel panel between the second- and third-story windows. The third- and fourth-story windows all have iron window guards, and the third-story windows are additionally topped by brackets. As with the center bay of the 82nd Street elevation, there is a balustrade above the fourth floor and a cornice above the fifth floor.
Features The house is variously cited as covering or ; according to The Wall Street Journal, the house covers . The space is split across eight levels, including a basement.
Original design The structure originally had either seven or eight bedrooms, as well as ten bathrooms. There were also eleven fireplaces and three elevators. The interior of the house was originally decorated in the French Neoclassical style. The original decorations included sconces, moldings, and wood paneling, which were largely preserved in later years. The first through third floors largely retain their original layout. The main entrance on 82nd Street leads to an outer vestibule clad with marble; a set of doors leads to a stair hall and other ground-level spaces. Within the stair hall is a curved staircase to the second floor, which has an iron railing. The staircase runs the entire height of the building, linking with each story.
The staircase opens directly into a music room on the second floor. The music room has arched doorways on its west and east walls, which respectively lead to a parlor and a dining room. The music room's south wall contains an elevator and another doorway, both of which are topped by panels with motifs depicting musical instruments. The dining room, to the east of the music room, is decorated with roundels with putti; vines painted using a trompe-l'œil technique; simple paneling on the walls; and a marble fireplace mantel. There is a kitchen to the east of the dining room. The parlor, west of the music room has wall paneling ornamented by classical moldings, urns, and cartouches, as well as a white fireplace mantel topped by a frieze with guilloché moldings. In addition, the parlor windows facing Fifth Avenue feature ornate frames with brackets, which support entablatures above the windows.
On the upper floors, the stairway connects with a landing that is flanked by two main rooms to the west and the east. The master bedroom is to the east of the third-floor landing, while a library room is to the west. The doorways in the master bedroom are decorated with foliate and guilloché moldings, and the master bedroom also has a marble fireplace mantel. A plainly designed bedroom is to the east of the master bedroom, within the house's easternmost wing. The western part of the third floor is occupied by a rococo-style library with a red-marble mantel, as well as bookcase built into the walls.
Modifications